1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a method of and apparatus for printed character transmission and reception.
2. Description of the Prior Art
In a teleprinter system or data printer system, alphanumeric characters and symbols are transmitted by means of data words from a transmitting station to a receiving station. When the characters are selected by way of a keyboard or by way of a memory, the data words are subsequently produced in the transmitting station. In the receiving station, the data words are fed to a printing device which prints out the appropriate characters.
In a printing station disclosed in an article by B. Peukert and H. Senger, Schreibstation PT 80, Siemens-Zeitschrift 51, 1977, Vol. 4, pp. 215-218, in the receiving station each character is represented by a mosaic printing head as a predetermined pattern of matrix points. The mosaic printing head consists either of a needle printing head comprising a plurality of printer needles driven by moving coils, or an ink printing head comprising a plurality of nozzles controlled by piezoceramics. The characters are represented, for example, in a matrix pattern of 12.times.9 points. The mosaic printing head contains twelve printing elements (needles or nozzles) and the characters are represented in nine feed steps. The printing head is supplied with binary character sequences which represent respective predetermined characters and which are stored in a character generator. For example, each character sequence contains as many binary characters as printing head elements are provided, and the binary values of the binary characters indicate whether or not the corresponding printing element is to be actuated.
However, the known teleprinters or data printers can only be used to print out the characters stored in the character generator. If, for example, the character generator stores only characters corresponding to a standard text, for example a particular language such as German, it is impossible to use the teleprinter or data printer to print out characters in another language, such as an Arabic or Cyrillic text.